Field of the Invention
present invention relates to methods for displaying electronic desktops on a computer monitor. In particular, the present invention relates to switching between electronic desktops on computers with multiple monitors and switching electronic desktops between monitors.
Related Technology
Modern computer hardware and the operating systems that control the hardware typically support multiple displays. The use of multiple monitors with a single operating system is typically done to facilitate display of content.
The operating system typically allows one of two different configurations for the second monitor. In the first scenario, the second monitor becomes an extension of the screen. The user indicates the side on which the second monitor is relative to the first monitor and the user can move objects from one screen to the next. This is the typical setup for a traditional desktop computer with two monitors. In a second scenario, the second monitor will be a mirror image of the first screen. The operating system simply outputs the content of the first screen to the second screen. This scenario is frequently used for group presentations where the user wants to display content from a relatively small personal computer screen (e.g., a laptop) to a conference room projector or large monitor.
Another reason for using two monitors is when running multiple operating systems on the same computer. In this scenario, the resources of the computer hardware are divided up between the two or more operating systems. Often the two different operating systems cannot share a monitor at the same time and thus need a dedicated monitor. The purpose and configuration of multiple monitors in a dual operating system configuration is vastly different than a multi-monitor feature of a single operating system.